Ultra-Nano Filtration: A Promising Practice to Supply Potable Water from Surface Resources

摘要

Membrane technology has grown rapidly in Iran in the last decade, however most of the installedncapacities are to produce industrial water and rarely for potable water. Mcost of the installed plants use ROnprocess to produce industrial and even potable water. In this study, Nanofiltration (NF) technology was employednfor Karoon River desalination as an economic and energy saving treatment process. Unstable quality and highnturbidity of Karoon River results in fouling on NF/RO membranes, leading to chemical washing once a month andnreplacing membranes within 6 month or per year. Thus, unlike of many water treatment plants which benefitntraditional pretreatment processes; ultra-filtration (UF) has been used as an effective and helpful pretreatmentnprocess. To make the proposed system reliability more clear, UF-NF results after three month of operation werencompared with an equivalent RO system. In fact, UF-NF system benefits a lower pressure drop due to lowernfouling on membranes and also more suitable permeate quality for drinking than RO. Hence, the promising resultsnof the present practice may offer a reasonable solution to solve potable water supply problems in some deprivednand arid regions.